Widescreen LCD Monitor and 4x3 resolutions

Hi all, I'm thinking about picking up a widescreen monitor with WXGA+ native
resolution (1440x900). I understand the issues with using non-native
resolutions on regular (4x3 or 5x4) LCD monitors, but I would like to know
how widescreen monitors display 4x3 resolutions. Does it depend on the
specific monitor, or video card, or the softare? What's prompted this
question is that I still have some older games that don't support widescreen
resolutions. I would hate to see the image stretched horizontally, as is
the case with typical 16x9 TV sets. I would be fine with the black bars on
the sides of a centered image. Anyone know the all the poop on this issue?

Thanks,
Glenn